Friday, June 13, 2008

Here we learn that Mr. Munroe apparently has a thing for math. Specifically, he finds math the "purest" field, though of course that brings up the question of how "purity of field" is measured. I suppose he means that personally biases are less likely to creep into math, but I'm not sure that's true. In any case, the whole thing is highly reminiscent of a joke which I have heard attributed to Steve Martin, that "When you really study science, you learn that everything in psychology is really just all about biology, and if you study biology it's all chemistry. Once you learn chemistry you learn that chemistry is really just physics, and when you get into it physics is really just math. Math is just philosophy, and philosophy is bullshit." Oh and the other thing it's highly reminiscent of is comic 263.

Oh also the characters in this comic are not being accurate. To choose one example, biology is not applied chemistry. At the molecular level it is indeed very much chemical, though it is of course the study of chemistry in living things. In any case, much of biology is about evolution, populations, etc, which is really not chemical at all. You know what is applied chemistry? Applied chemistry.

44 comments:

No comments on this yet? This is the by far the worst xkcd I've seen. Everybody who majors in a science probably encounters this reductionist chain of math/physics snobbery their first semester of college (and nobody takes it seriously). Randall does original or unexpected with this well-worn trope, just repeats it at face value. I hadn't encountered the Steve Martin joke before, but it's a good one; reducing the reductionism to a field which makes no claims to "purity"; I used to do this myself, reducing mathematics to English (since mathematical formulas are ultimately a shorthand for a spoken language). Reduction to philosophy or English actual would be the basis for a joke. Might also be good if it looped back around to sociology (mathematics as a profession is a social construct...). As it stands, there is no joke here.

"awesome" is different from "funny". A comic that was just a stick figure saying "You know who a cool dude is? Carl Wheeler is a cool dude" would be very very awesome, but it wouldn't be funny and it would just piss off people who disagreed with that assessment. Much like this one does.

and the award for achievement in the field of word-twisting goes to...Vernunft! Let's give him a big hand people.

No, what I wrote was not equivalent to "So biology involves chemistry but mixes it with a number of other phenomena." What I wrote is that molecular biology, genetics certainly, even biology at the level of organisms maybe, involves chemistry. But there are vast regions of the field where biology is not at all "chemistry applied to a wider range," with my examples being population genetics and evolution. Chemistry has nothing to do with it, in any way. You could say it's applied game theory, or applied statistics, maybe even economics - but not applied chemistry, unless you give yourself a deliberately narrow view of what biology is.

I believe you have a narrow view of what is involved in genetics, and evolution in particular.

Do you understand that the source for all evolution is genetic mutation? Genetic mutation is no more than the loss of one atom, in one single nucleotide base!

PS. It's a joke! And it's a funny joke!

PPS. It's not awesome, the sun is awesome. The milky way is awesome. Big fat heads, have awesome heads. Do you understand what awesome means? If we're totally devoid of humour lets just ram forks into our eyes.

Ummm... How, exactly, did you decide whether the "purity" of a field should determine whether or not the field is good or bad? My understanding of the word is that it is roughly the opposite of "applied".

There are people who prefer pure fields over applied, and there are people who prefer applied fields over pure fields. Both sides have been known to scorn the other, as we see right here in the comic, together with the alt-text. What it bubbles down to is entirely a matter of opinion. Why should you feel insulted by an opinion?

That's an opinion which specifically pertains to a sense of inferiority.

It's the difference between specifically saying one field is better than another and saying one field is "more pure" than another. You seem to think that the second connotes the first. I feel that no such connotation should exist. Purity is not a measure of how good or bad a field is. Period.

Doesn't Rob himself date women? Surely he wouldn't have made this comment for the purpose of insulting people he spends time with. Maybe it was just... a joke? What is that? It is still insulting, you say?

Were you really a guy who truly believed that women are inferior, I would begin to wonder whether maybe you are so insecure in your manliness that you have to put down others to reassure yourself. And, of course, you have to spend time with them to constantly reassure yourself. :) So... no, it wouldn't really be insulting. Just stupid. And that's coming from a guy.

As someone who, presumably, doesn't truly hold that belief, you come across as making fun of guys who do. In the same way that I see Randall coming across as making fun of those who equate purity with superiority.

Would you care to explain to me why my interpretation of the comic is any less valid than yours? The most obvious interpretation isn't necessarily the most valid, you know.

I guess it depends on the joke, really. Is it "ha ha, only serious?" Stating your opinion with a smirk and then claiming plausible deniability? That's a common one.

I think your problem is you are operating based on the assumption that opinions are pristine. Sure, you disagree with the interpretation that this is kind of a smug swipe at less-pure fields--that's great, but it's not fun to talk about if you're going to constantly remind everyone that it's all opinions.

I feel like it's more in keeping with Randall's character and his Illustrated Picture Blog to interpret it as a fairly straightforward jab at "less pure" fields. The addition of psychology and sociology, which don't really belong on the chain, adds to that impression--I feel like Randy is probably not a big fan of the social sciences. (He just seems like the type.)

Again, I point out that if he's taking a jab at impure fields, he's taking a jab at himself. While I do know that it is healthy to be able to laugh at oneself, I have difficulty believing that that is what he is doing here. After all, the applied fields are, by the very word "applied", very important to all of our lives. For crying out loud, we wouldn't be discussing this comic on a blog over the internet if it weren't for the applied sciences!

I'm not going to continue arguing about this all day; suffice it to say that I feel y'all are getting offended over nothing.

OH. MY. GOD. I just want to start out by asking if you have all been to a doctor about your high blood pressure problem? Do you seriously go through life looking for things to be offended by? Doesn't that get stressful? My boyfriend, a chemist, likes to make fun of me, a biologist for the exact same reason depicted in this comic. But I also majored in math in college, so I can turn that around on him too. When this comic came out, we both found it highly amusing as it added to our debate.

I've racked my brain to figure out how this is condescending to mathematicians; I've got nothing. I see where you can interpret insult to other fields from this comic, but as a biologist myself, I'm not offended even a little. Why? IT'S A FUCKING JOKE. I might be offended if, instead of a comic, this were a blog entry about why less pure fields are inferior, but I think the point has already been brought up that Randall himself clearly doesn't think this if he is an applied scientist.

In short, whether this comic is funny is clearly subjective. But if you are looking for something to get pissed about because you're angsty, then I guess I'm glad we're not friends. You all sound way too high maintenance.

I also want to add that if you concede that organismal biology can be interpreted as applied chemistry, the studies of ecology and population genetics are really applied organismal biology, which is applied applied chemistry. Can we just call that applied chemistry?

Biology is a "chaotic system" of chemistry. Reductionism is probably true, just useless. If you know everything in physics, you can explain everything in biology, over and infinite amount of time and calculation

This comic is incorrect, retarded, unfunny, and basically steals a joke Carlos Mencia style and makes it unfunny, and isn't funny. It sucks. Oh yeah and it's pretty much as self righteous as possible. I think this was actually the first comic where I seriously started to hate xkcd. The rest I thought were either mediocre, or the earlier ones that of course a lot of people agree were usually decent or okay.

I was annoyed by the strip myself, due to its inherent arrogance. I'm not involved in any of those fields, but Randall has a habit of putting down language in favor of math in other strips... Being a writer that irks me, because without language math wouldn't mean a damn thing. We don't communicate in binary.

I enjoyed this comic quite a bit. I also think that it's likely correct. Depending, of course on how we define "pure" - one way that comes to mind is being able to fully-encompass the prior system with the fewest well-defined axioms. For example all math can be defined within the framework of ZFC and using that you could write a single Legrangian which encompasses all physics (except gravity).

That aside, the idea that this kind of academic heirachy exists is pretty true to life and I'd say, that when viewed in light of the alt-text then it even has an air of self-mocking.

I don't really take it as condescending - unless you apply a value judgement about "purity" and something else like utility in some domain or "goodness". Which, to me anyway is just going out of your way to be insulted.

Hey, wow. It's my first comment (or just about) on xkcdsucks up there at the very top back before I called myself Sepia. Anon on Aug 29 does with Psychology pretty much what I used to do with English/Linguistics (stick English in the chain after Philosophy since you can't communicate philosophical concepts with language). Hell, make it Communications for a college major which really doesn't get much respect (possibly deservedly).

Now I'm wondering what the xkcd was in January 2009 that pissed me off enough to find this blog.

I really like this comic. Although it seems as though every person who posted here that isn't a math major took great offense. I have an easy fix for that: stop studying whatever it is that you're studying and become a math major. Math is where it's at.

If Anonymous wants to post 50 times,e should have gotten a username. I think he wanted us to think he was several people. Oh, and its entirely possible for a joke to be condescending, annoying, arrogant, etc. Being a joke doesn't give it a pass. The joke is something like "haha physicists think they're on top, but they forget about math." That is just as arrogant and irritating as a joke as it would be if he said it outright (which he pretty much did, since there's hardly a joke here. The comic gives no reason to think Randall doesn't believe this. In fact the joke is that it is true (that math is on top but scientists don't realize it). And obviously the word "pure" is inherently positive, yes implied sciences are important, but the point of this comic is basically "you think you're chemistry, biology, etc. is so great, well you'd be nowhere without math. And Randall isn't an applied scientist, he's a cartoonist, one who's obsessed with math and science and frequently makes fun of other fields of study.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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